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Text flickers on horizontal motion
Hi all,
I have this problem in FCP where I want to make a horizontal motion text animation,
– with a black text on a white background.
– at a slow rate (approx 5 pixels per second).
– with a frutiger55roman font.
– using the FCP Text Generator.I get a real nasty flicker. I’ve tried lots of things to make it go smooth like:
– setting the font to bold
– putting on a gaussian blur (which made it worse)
– putting on a directional blur (which worked, but it’s not an option for my employer)
– using de-interlace and anti-flicker effects on the textlayer
– putting the text in photoshop and exporting it as a PNG
– trying the same in After Effects
– using the Boris Text GeneratorNothing worked so far. Does anyone have some kind of magic trick or an effect which could help? Can someone also please explain to me in detail as to why what I’m doing is wrong?
Thanks very much!
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6 Replies
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Firstly the Boris text tools are better than the FCP ones. If they look bad, my guess is that you are using DV codec in your sequence and also not viewing the result on an external interlaced monitor.
The solution is to use ProRes or uncompressed for your final sequence. However it is more important if you want help to trouble shoot, to give us basic information about your camera codec, sequence codec, settings, frame rates, monitoring etc
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Hi Michael,
I should’ve put that info in my initial post, my bad. The sequence setting compressor is Uncompressed 8bit. The Aspect Ratio is in PAL 4:3 and thus 50Hz. The quality is set at best, just like the quality setting for rendering. The field dominance is always set to upper, as I (almost) never work with DV. I do work with an extra interlaced Sony monitor, hooked up by an AJA breakoutbox, which output is in this case of course set to 625i25.
I now changed that the field dominance to none, as I am using apple animations as footage. But to no effect. My guess is that the movement’s just too slow to be done smoothly. Speeding it up helps. Can I be right with this?
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And get a new employer :-), the directional blur worked, and yet “it’s not an option for my employer”, hmm.
Ed[Brecht Wouters] “I get a real nasty flicker. I’ve tried lots of things to make it go smooth like:
– putting on a gaussian blur (which made it worse)
– putting on a directional blur (which worked, but it’s not an option for my employer)” -
Thanks for the info Brecht. It might be the font. If it has really thin lines they might be the cause of the jitter. Try the bold version perhaps.
The other important thing is to check in the motion tab that the positioning is not using numbers with fractions. Make sure they are whole numbers to avoid sub pixel interpreting.
Crawl speed is always an issue, but I have been impressed with the Boris title tools.
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Yes I figured that using fractional numbers was the killer. So my guess now is that it’s not really possible to ensure a clean move if it’s under 25 pixels per second, am I saying this correctly? The bold font does the same, so…
So my actual question is: Is it correct to tell my employer: “Quit hassling me about it, it cannot be done”? But in a milder, employer-friendly fashion of course 😉
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Har 😀
I used a directional blur of value 1, but he felt it knocked off too much detail, so he wanted me to find another way to make it work. He figures that it works on television shows, so we should be able to do the same, since we do broadcasting as well. My guess is that TV shows work in standards for that matter. But I need some backup research to be absolutely sure as to what I’m saying. I only just graduaded and I still have a lot to learn 😉
But thanks for the support.
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